Main navigation

Secondary Navigation

Globes Flashback '07: Baldwin Is 'Shocked'

By Robert Pace 8:00 AM PST, December 30, 2012

Alec Baldwin was known as a film actor until undertaking debatably the best role of his career on television as "Jack Donaghy" on 30 Rock. After decades in the industry, he experienced immediate, tangible success through the show and was stunned by it all.

While he had previously been nominated for awards, including both Oscar and Golden Globes nominations for his 2003 film The Cooler, Baldwin had yet to win a major individual award for his acting until the Tina-Fey-created comedy series came along.

The first season of 30 Rock premiered in the fall of 2006 and Baldwin was nominated a few months later for a Golden Globes for Best Actor. With Season 1 winding down, he was granted the award, his first of this magnitude, in January at the 2007 Golden Globes.

"I never really think of myself of someone that's going to walk in and [win the award]," he says to ET's former co-host Mary Hart after winning the award. "Meryl [Streep] walks in and wins the award. There's people that just have that role; they have that gravitational field...To win this, I am shocked. I am truly, truly shocked."

Although he was shocked to receive the award, Baldwin admits that he believed the show had a chance to succeed due to the various positive elements that comprised 30 Rock. Not only did the show reap accolades for Baldwin, but it also provided him with a new lifestyle that he enjoyed.

"I love the people and I love the scripts and I love the opportunity but I also love the lifestyle," he says. "In the past when I did movies, there was a thing that was thrilling to me twenty years ago, and that was I didn't know where I was going to be four months from now...and now I know exactly where I'm going to be four months from now, and I need that. I want that."

Baldwin has been able to maintain a stable lifestyle of filming 30 Rock for seven years now and awards have become a predictable facet of his life as well. After winning for Season 1, he has gone on to win two more individual awards, receiving a nomination in every year since 2007.

The 54-year-old actor will have a chance to add yet another Best Actor Golden Globe to his collection, as he has once again been nomination for 30 Rock's final season.